Point Blank – February 2
On NCAA depth, and why Duke may be OK tonight…The Perils of Polls 2016, continued (on just how awful the For-Profit media polls fared)…Looking for an active scoreboard in Albuquerque…
Measuring depth is going to be a major handicapping issue on the NCAA hardwoods this February, then into March, and consider it among the prime notions for most seasons going forward – the “One and Done” era is taking a particular toll in this regard, not giving coaches much chance to develop the kind of player rotations they had been accustomed to in the past. It is not necessarily a paradigm shift for lesser programs, which are not impacted by those early exits, but still face depth issues because of injury and other forms of attrition, but this season there is an impact from the top down that is more significant than most campaigns.
In the Monday column there was a take on Kentucky’s Tyler Ulis, who is playing splendid basketball, but also having to shoulder far too much of a load for the Wildcats, At 5-9/160 his ability to withstand the minute counts will be something I’ll keep under a magnifying lens over the next few weeks, including tonight, when Kentucky travels to Tennessee. There is another major power that is also on that watch list this evening – Mike Krzyzewski and his Duke Blue Devils, who enter the week unranked for the first time since March of 2007, a span of 167 AP polls.
Duke got a tremendous run from freshmen Jahlil Okafor, Tyus Jones and Justise Winslow to win it all last April, but with all three departing, plus the early loss of Rasheed Sulaimon, it meant a rebuild this season in more ways that one – not only plugging new players into the rotation, but having enough players to actually build one. When Amile Jefferson was injured the latter aspect came front and center, leaving Coach K with only six serviceable players, three of them freshmen. As such, a program that won the National Championship last season is sitting at 4-4 in ACC play, and no guarantee to even make it to the Big Dance this time. But what if the Blue Devils look like a different team tonight? The serious handicapper needs to open the door for that possibility.
One of the things that has magnified the Duke lack of depth so far is actually being Duke. The Blue Devils are a television ratings prize, and as such have twice been thrown into the “Two in Three” setting that Big Monday brings, ACC teams having to play a Saturday game, and then have a short turnaround before playing again on Monday. Those Monday games brought a pair of dismal defeats, so let’s set some perspective – how Duke played in those two, vs. the other six league games -
Duke ACC games:
SU ATS Margin
1 day off` 0-2 0-2 -20.5
2+ days off 4-2 4-2 -3.5
Margin refers to how the team has performed against the market expectations, the difference between the closing line and the scoreboard. When fresh, Duke has played close to them, being over-rated by about a half point per game. But the two Monday outings were far different, exacerbated by how hard the Blue Devils had had to work in the Saturday game leading in (a home loss to Notre Dame, and a road win at N. C. State in which they trailed by seven at halftime and had to chase the Wolfpack down). That matters when the top six players in the rotation have had to log 1565 of the 1600 conference minutes, scoring 625 of 627 points, and grabbing 269 of 274 rebounds.
Does that change tonight? The reason for the focus is that Duke now has the rare benefit of going more than a full week without playing, a span in which opponent Georgia Tech has had a couple of road games that were not decided until the late stages, a 90-83 win at N. C. State and Saturday’s 60-57 loss at Syracuse. Not only does it alleviate most of the Blue Devil fatigue notions, but it can also mean a mini-camp in terms of the practice layout, which is even more of a factor when there are three freshmen that the playbook is being built around.
There may be a temptation to pull the trigger on Duke tonight if a -3 can be found. There are still matchup issues to work around, with Georgia Tech’s work on the offensive boards a challenge for the Blue Devils to overcome. The real key is to understand settings like these for the long-term, adjusting a team’s Power Rating based on the schedule layout on nights in which depth either gets magnified (like when Duke hosts Louisville next Monday), or reduced. Consider it like a bullpen fatigue rating during the MLB season, and you will develop a handicapping flexibility that will be most useful to your bottom line.
The Perils of Polling 2016, continued…
Now that the first actual votes of the 2016 US Presidential Election cycle have been counted it really is “game on”, and it may be quite a game. There was a foundation laid here back on December 10, US Election 2016, and the Perils of Polls and in breaking down the Iowa results there is enough food for thought to fill a soup cauldron.
The gist of the earlier column, and last Wednesday’s follow-up that put a Ted Cruz ticket “In the Sights…” was that modern polling is an entirely different ballgame, the diminishing use of land-lines drastically changing the modeling, and with a genuine scramble going on across the organizations in terms of how to get it right. Major elections in Israel and Great Britain in recent years fell significantly from what the final polls were projecting, and I believe that may be the case throughout this cycle in the United States. As such, the final polls from the Republican side of the Iowa scrum now become a serious box score. These are sorted by date, those at the top being the freshest, but all of them within 12 days of the voting -
Cruz Trump Rubio
Selzer & Co. 23 28 15
Quinnipiac U. 24 31 17
Emerson College 26 27 22
Opinion Savvy 19 20 19
Public Policy Polling 23 31 14
Gravis Marketing 27 31 13
Marist College 25 32 18
Monmouth U. 23 30 16
American Research 26 33 11
CBS/YouGov 34 39 13
Fox News 23 34 12
NBC/WSJ 25 32 18
CNN 26 37 14
Final 28 24 23
Only two of the 13 were even within the margin of error in terms of the Cruz/Trump comparison, and only two within that margin on Trump/Rubio. There are a couple of key takeaways.
First, forgive the pollsters a little because the unusual mode of the Iowa caucus format has confounded them in the past, and it was made even more challenging because of Donald Trump entering the race, which brought a unique element into play. What they were being asked to do was rather difficult. But even with that…
Second, be extremely wary of those being driven by what I will call the “For-Profit Media”. I grouped those four at the bottom for best comparison. The networks have been having a field day with this so far, getting much higher ratings than usual for the pre-primary cycles, and as such there was a rather discomforting self-interest in play – the more that they could add fuel to the fires, the more that heat would benefit their own bottom lines. The final polls from CBS, Fox, NBC and CNN were absurdly off the mark, enough so that you must be extremely careful with them, as long as Trump remains in the race.
As for the next wave anticipate a major market shift to Rubio, who will become a better than even-money favorite to win the Republican nomination. He did not need to win last night, merely be competitive, while also showing that there may not be a populist tsunami flooding the electorate, a story that was being presented over past months that may turn out to have largely been a media invention. In other words, at some point this may again become Politics as Usual.
In the Sights, NCAA…
I am expecting to see a loose and free-flowing game when UNLV and New Mexico square off in Mountain West play tonight, two teams that can get anchored down by others that play slowly in this conference, but take the shackles off when they face each other. That sets up #738 Over (8:00 Eastern) as an opportunity, especially when we note the fine print from their earlier meeting in Las Vegas.
The Rebels won that one 86-74, but it could have flown far past the 160 – both teams shot only 40.0 percent from the field, and they combined to make only 13-43 from 3-point range. The explosive pace brought 125 FG attempts and 61 FTs, and it would not have taken much at all to tack another 15-20 points to that result. I do not see that tempo changing, and the absence of Ben Carter for UNLV (second on the team in rebounds, blocked shots and steals in conference play) may pick it up even more, in particular making the Rebels weaker defensively around the basket.
Note that what was also missing in the first encounter were scramble points, because of the big UNLV lead. I expect this one to be much closer, so in a game in which it would be no surprise for the losing team to reach 75 points, Over at 149 or less is a fit.
The complete Point Blank Archive
U.S. Election 2016: The Perils of Polls
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